Kimberly Casiano

Kimberly Casiano is a Puerto Rican businesswoman. She is President and Chief Operating Officer of Casiano Communications ^[1] — the largest Hispanic publisher of periodicals and magazines in the United States. Casiano serves on the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company^[2] and Mutual of America.^[3]

Personal

Kimberly Cassiano was born on December 21, 1957 in New York to Puerto Rican parents — Manuel Casiano, Chairman of the Board of Casiano Communications and Nora Casiano, the family firm's current business manager. At age 12, she moved with her family to Puerto Rico when her father joined Governor Luis A. Ferré's cabinet as Economic Development Administrator.^[4]

Casiano is married to Peruvian-born Juan F. Woodroffe and they have two children.

Education

In 1979, Casiano graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in Politics and Latin American Studies. She later earned a Master's degree in Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1981— at which time she became the youngest woman to receive an MBA from Harvard at the time.^[5][6]

Business career

Casiano began her business career in 1981, when she founded Caribbean Marketing Overseas Corporation, a consulting firm specializing in financing, trade and investment promotion between the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. Caribbean Marketing Overseas Corporation worked closely with the Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) on Caribbean Basin Initiative projects.^[5] In 1988, she joined the family-owned publishing and marketing business — Casiano Communications. She held a number of management positions in the company until 1994 when she became president of the company.

In December 2003, she was elected to the Board of Directors of Ford Motor Company, becoming the first Hispanic woman to serve on the board of any top five Fortune 100 corporate boards.^[2] At Ford, she serves on three Ford committees — Audit; Nominating and Corporate Governance; and Environmental and Public Policy.^[5]

In April 2006, she joined the Board of Directors of Mutual of America,^[2] which provides insurance coverage and retirement plans to non-profits as well as small- to medium-sized firms.^[7]

Service to the community

Casiano is currently on the boards of the Hispanic College Fund, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit which awards over 500 scholarships annually to Hispanic college students throughout the U.S. She is former Puerto Rico Chapter Chair of the Young Presidents' Organization. She co-founded and is vice chair of Nuestra Casa de los Niños, a nonprofit group providing private school education for economically disadvantaged children in Puerto Rico.

For years, she has been committed to honoring the memory of José Berrocal, a former classmate of hers and William Ford at Princeton University who died after having served as the youngest president of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank, as a role model for young Puerto Ricans. For a decade, she led the fundraising efforts of the American Cancer Society in Puerto Rico, establishing the Red Gala annual event.

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans

Notes

References

• Georgianne Ocasio Teissonniere (May 13, 2005). "Kimberly Casiano: At the top of the corporate world". Puerto Rico Herald. Retrieved 2007-06-10. 
• "Kimberly A Casiano Profile". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2007-06-10. 

External links

• "Casiano Communications". Retrieved 2007-06-10. 
• http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=10484